Thursday, February 12, 2015

Oklahoma earthquake traffic light system

The traffic light system in Oklahoma seems to be working. I think the earthquake activity has gone down a fair bit, but we are due for another round of 4+'s. When that happens most of these wells will have to close. I suspect that has already happened closer to OK City. Oh well, on to Kansas!

Update: The whole thing is coming up again. It breathes like a giant organism, and there is actually a lot physics behind that. I just realized that they are drilling new holes faster than they are closing them. Really, if you are shutting down wells then you have to close off that entire area. Otherwise people put down a huge bore and pump the life out of it until they are closed. I can't see that natural gas fracking will shut down that much, since they are competing with long pipelines.

Update2: Oh darn, just thought of something. Why aren't the disposal companies up in arms about this traffic light system? They should have full-page ads condemning it. Because it syncs exactly with the lifetime of a disposal well. These things clog up and they move on, drilling a new one nearby.